


a new kind of empty // a new kind of silent

by coffeecold



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Fights, Future Fic, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Inspired by Music, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 11:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18738493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeecold/pseuds/coffeecold
Summary: sweet pea returns to riverdale, and everything has changed.inspired by 'bloodied up in a bar fight' by aaron west and the roaring twenties





	a new kind of empty // a new kind of silent

The jail cell is cold, and Sweet Pea can smell wet dirt and gasoline on the breeze that blows in in intervals, whenever someone opens a door down the hall. Every sense seems heightened here, his skin prickling with goosebumps, his head pounding, each small sound making his whole body twitch with anxiety. His nose is still bleeding when he dabs at it, something smarts in his chest when he breathes in too deep. There are cuts on his hands that probably need stitches, but won’t get them, because who will foot the hospital bill?

He’ll take the scars and run with them, just like he did with all the others.

He should never have come back here. Dreams don’t mean shit. Dreams of Riverdale have always been nightmares, there’s a reason he left, and now he curses himself silently, for ever believing that one good dream could mean that things would be different. Riverdale may be a home, but it’s also a hell. He left years ago - almost ten long years now. Last night was supposed to feel like coming home, but he’s slowly coming to realise that home isn’t the asphalt on the streets, or the familiar routes between the schools and the trailer park and the diner. Home was always the people, and he doesn’t know the people any more. 

Mom moved away not long after he graduated and disappeared. She’s got a one-bed, first-floor apartment, upstate in Poughkeepsie, close to her parents and where she grew up. Sweet Pea’s always felt bad for keeping her away from there, since she always talked about wanting Riverdale to be a better life for her kids. He stayed there with her for a little while, on a mattress on her floor between couches and hostels, but it was never going to be for long. He can’t keep still, can’t sleep at night, and he’s given her enough grief in twenty-five years to last a lifetime. He already cashed in all his favors with the few friends he keeps around. So back to Riverdale had seemed like the only option. 

He regrets it now, as he lays back on the hard cot and looks at the bars and the concrete wall beyond.  He regrets getting off the bus, being met by damp gray fog, and thoughtlessly shrugging on his old leather jacket for warmth. The snake patch is worn and faded, but it still fits, perhaps better than ever. He always said he’d fill it out.  
He wishes he hadn’t stopped by Pop’s, because it isn’t Pop’s any more. It’s not even La Bonne Nuit, because Veronica and Archie got back together, left after graduation. They’re in Chicago now. Sweet Pea sees Veronica in his mom’s fashion magazines sometimes. She and Archie are at this gala, or that show, or being hounded by paparazzi at a bar over cocktails. He’s not really sure what they do, but it must be nice to be happy.

Pop’s is a Dunkin’ Donuts and the smell from the parking lot makes Sweet Pea feel sick.

Really, he should’ve stopped there. Found a place to crash for the night, maybe called round to the Joneses’ place to see if FP and Jellybean would let him stay. But no, he hadn’t come home to hide away, and he’d rather be out all night than run the risk of seeing Jughead, and Betty, and both sets of Cooper twins - Polly’s two have got to be almost teenagers now, and Betty and Jughead’s girls are nearly three. Sweet Pea remembers their smiles beaming out of the family Christmas card and it makes his chest hurt in a way that’s nothing to do with his bruised ribs.

That was how he ended up back on the Southside, on a barstool in the corner of some dingy, crowded dive. He remembered the lights being red and the beer room-temperature and tasting like the lines hadn’t been cleaned in a while, but he’d kept drinking it anyway. Kept glancing at the door, half hoping a familiar face would walk in and the other half praying that nobody would. He didn’t need a game of twenty questions - how’s life been? what have you been up to? where are you living now? - but god, he could’ve used the company. Even just a smile. As he continued to drink, he’d let his eyes wander, taking in cracks in the walls and broken bulbs, groups of men young and old clustered around a pool table or a couple of booths. Not a lot of women. But Sweet Pea wouldn’t have wanted to bring a girl here either, not when he saw the way some of the guys looked as they watched the redheaded glass collector weave between tables. She kept nodding his way, and he could only hope he was at least smiling a little in return. 

He’s still not really sure where it started to go wrong, which creak of the door signified the beginning of the end. He just remembers the pint glass being knocked from his hand and shattering on the sticky floor, as an unseen grip yanked him to his feet, and the whole bar going silent as his vision filled with a face that should’ve been familiar but wasn’t quite there. A couple of broken teeth, bloodshot eyes, greasy hair. Whiskey on his breath, a smell that jolted Sweet Pea back to early childhood before Dad fucked off to god knows where. The hand on his throat pulled him back twice as fast.   
“Thought we ran Serpent scum out of this town,  _ long ago _ ,” the face snarled, and Sweet Pea winced. So that’s why there’s nobody here. He’d never really considered that they’d lose the whole town when the last shreds of kids that cared ended up lost too. “You bastards aren’t welcome.”  
Sweet Pea could only blink, not sure how to reply to that.   
“You hear me? Get the hell out before we make you like we did the rest of your junkie, murderer friends.” The man spat in his face, and Sweet Pea snapped, shoving him back into a table. 

That was when hell had broken loose, and the girl behind the bar was yelling. More hands came, grabbing at Sweet Pea, but he’d never forgotten how to throw a punch. Blocking them, though, was a different matter. He’d never forget the feeling of his nose breaking for the third time, spilling hot blood over his lips and chin, blood he spat at the closest assailant when he got too close. He doesn’t remember what he said, if anything at all, over the screech of chairs on linoleum floors and the breaking of glass. He recalls throwing up his arms to protect his face when someone shattered a bottle on the bar, sending shards flying everywhere, and he’s pretty sure that’s when they took him down. 

It had felt like the kicking and beating would never end, until it did, and he came to in the back of a cop car, handcuffed with blood and tears mixing on his face.

It was just after midnight when they brought him in, and it’s almost three in the morning now, according to the clock on the wall. The hands feel like they’re taunting him as the minutes crawl by. He wants to sleep, but it’s an effort to breathe, and he’s just a little scared that if he sleeps, he might not wake back up.

Nobody’s pressing charges, he knows that much. The guy that processed him at the desk recognises him from Riverdale High. “I wouldn’t have come back, if I were you,” he’d admitted, getting Sweet Pea to sign his name over, and over again. “You don’t want trouble from those guys. Another run-in and they might kill you. You got a place you can stay? Someone I can call?” 

It had taken him seventeen minutes of running through every name he still knew to even come up with one, and the phone number attached to it that might not even still be connected. They haven’t talked in years. But there’s nobody else within reach that might even be tempted to come. So Sweet Pea had him try, but so far, it looks like nothing, and in the end, he does fall asleep. It’s late, and they’ve said he can leave at ten tomorrow. 

Leave for where, he’s not sure. He doesn’t remember if he had his wallet when he woke up in the car. He sleeps, fitful and restless, but there’s nobody to care when he cries out.

When he wakes, it’s to an officer opening up the holding cell. The bars crash against each other and it’s all Sweet Pea can do not to cringe back into a corner and hide as the pain in his head reaches a crescendo, a hangover and a possible concussion and two blossoming black eyes all rolled into one.   
“Come on, time to go, buddy. Your stuff’s at the front, and there’s a guy out there. Says he’s come to give you a ride.”  
Sweet Pea squints. A ride to where? Still, he follows the officer out to the reception area, picks up his jacket and wallet and phone, his keys to all the homes he can’t go to and a bike he wrecked beyond repair. He hesitates, before choosing to keep the jacket off, and just hanging it over his arm. 

Someone touches his shoulder. “I’d put it on if I were you. It’s gonna be a long ride.”  
He freaks out just a little, spins around to the source of the voice, and he’s really, really glad that there’s a desk right beside them because if he didn’t have something to lean on he’d fall. 

Fangs is taller than he used to be. He and Sweet Pea are a few inches off being eye to eye, not a head’s difference like the last time they saw each other. He’s gotten broader, too, and that’s good, because the next thing Sweet Pea does is more or less fall against him, shaky hands wrapping around him, and Fangs hugs back so easily it’s like he never left. 

Sweet Pea’s breath evens out, for the first time since he got back to Riverdale. “Fuck,” he breathes, and that makes Fangs laugh.  
“C’mon. Let’s get you home,” he murmurs, finding Sweet Pea’s hand and squeezing it, tight. His hands are still just as cold as they always were.   
“Home?” It doesn’t feel real.   
“Yeah. I got a house over in Greendale. You can stay as long as you want.”

“I missed you,” Sweet Pea tells him quietly, as they’re walking out to Fangs’ bike.  
“I know,” Fangs says simply, but he walks close to Sweet Pea’s side. “I missed you too.”

As they pull out onto the street, Sweet Pea’s arms are wound around Fangs’ waist, and he hopes it’ll be a long drive, just so he doesn’t have to let go. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sORRY. 
> 
> catch me on tumblr at fxngsfxgarty for more swangs and more emo. requests always open.


End file.
